Sat, Feb 05, 2011

The January employment report was a complete snow job. Abominable winter blizzards across the country caused 886,000 workers to report “not at work due to bad weather,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is 600,000 more than the normal 300,000 not at work for the average January of the past decade.

When Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana decided to announce recently that he isn't going to run for the Republican nomination for president -- and instead is likely to run for governor of his state -- you would have thought, from the reaction in some quarters, that he had committed the ultimate act of betrayal.

Like all modern revolutions since the fashion was introduced in Paris, events in Egypt proceed a la francaise: in a series of successive shocks from right to left till the pendulum swings as far as it can, trembles for an uncertain moment (the Reign of Terror), and then swings back toward autocracy.

Perhaps you’ve heard about Kelley Williams-Bolar, the Ohio mother who was recently tried and convicted for falsifying residency records so her daughters could attend a better school where they would receive a quality education.

Over the last decade or so, as the giants of the founding generation of modern American conservatism have died, each has been rehabilitated into a gentleman-statesman of a bygone era of conservative decency and open-mindedness.

Digging in the garden of a health official in Mali, investigators discover more than 30 counterfeit "stamps" used to validate fraudulent invoices to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Uncontrolled government spending is far worse than previously projected just a few months ago, driving the federal budget much more deeply into debt, which threatens our economy and our future standard of living.

If ever a federal agency were a candidate for termination, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) would make for a good choice. The BIA combines patronage and ethnic separatism into a single package, wasting sizable tax dollars in the process.

Americans must learn two concepts to better understand the political earthquake the United States is now pushing as President Obama gives his nod to "the Arab street," predominantly organized, it seems, by the Muslim Brotherhood, to force out an ally, Hosni Mubarak.

Barack Obama, like all American politicians, likes to portray himself as future-oriented and open to technological progress. Yet the vision he set out in his State of the Union address is oddly antique and disturbingly static.

One of the most disturbing results of an adult-focused public education system is the constant focus on money. There is an insatiable thirst on the part of Big Labor to constantly increase spending on public education, because the teachers’ unions are mostly concerned with their pensions, paychecks and the union coffers.

Much has been said and written lately about “for-profit higher education” – in large part because the U.S. Department of Education is expected to soon publish so-called “Gainful Employment” rules that would place de facto mandates on who these schools can teach and what they can be taught.

In his State of the Union address last week, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged that America’s “free enterprise system is what drives innovation.” He also said that if America is to “win the future,” then it must first “win the race to educate our kids.”

Wed, Feb 02, 2011

Fresh off of blaming Jared Loughner's killing spree in the Tucson mall on Sarah Palin, liberals are now blaming it on high-capacity magazines. They might as well imprison everyone named "Jared" to prevent a crime like this from ever happening again.

There has been a lot of media buzz about the thousands of prostitutes, strippers and pole dancers streaming into the Dallas area for the Super Bowl weekend. But what rarely gets reported is the alarming fact that hiding behind the push-up bras, false eyelashes and stilettos are children, some as young as 12 years of age, who are victims of human sex trafficking.

Is it not amazing that it's taken the news media exactly 100 years to discover that Ronald Reagan was a role model? While he lived and even after he died, they shot every arrow and dropped every bomb they could on this man and his reputation.

An American in Cairo in the mid-1980s could not have failed to notice the ubiquitous young men in black uniforms, holding rifles and standing as generally inattentive and slump-shouldered sentries in front of major embassies and public buildings.

On December 3rd 2009, Alan Gross, a U.S. citizen distributing cell phones and computer equipment to Cuba’s Jewish community on contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development, prepared to board a plane homeward at Havana’s International Airport.

Egypt's complex rebellion is rushing toward revolution. For the near-term, how the Egyptian military promotes, thwarts, and/or negotiates the inevitable redistribution of power among individuals and factions within the country is the most critical issue.

Vicky Hartzler, a freshman representative from Missouri, says one of her top priorities is "reining in runaway spending." Yet she exempts one-fifth of the federal budget and more than half of discretionary spending from scrutiny.

Admittedly, the Egyptian uprising, the nullification of Obamacare and the ongoing ramifications of "Snowpocolypse 2011" could render the controversy about an MTV original program insignificant by comparison. After all, MTV is only out to destroy an entire generation. No big deal.

While Congress prepares its budget for this year, threatening deep cuts to a $14 trillion debt, the first real test of the GOP's fiscal constitution is shaping up to come in the form of whether to raise the debt ceiling.

On May 2, Republicans will gather at the Reagan Library in Santa Barbara, Calif., for the first GOP presidential debate of the 2012 campaign. It's not clear which candidates will be there, but here's a safe bet: Each will declare himself, or herself, a Reagan Republican.

The turmoil in Egypt must not be seen in isolation from other events in the world. Neither is it an aberration. It is the next scene in a long-running play whose final act is the domination of the world by radical Islamists.

The turmoil in Egypt must not be seen in isolation from other events in the world. Neither is it an aberration. It is the next scene in a long-running play whose final act is the domination of the world by radical Islamists.

"We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem." That's a Republican mantra often used to explain why the answer to Washington's deficit spending is not a tax increase, but more spending cuts.

Back in the days before the State of the Union was used to showcase Congress's bipartisan spirit and parties still sat on opposite sides of the aisle, the American people could get a good read on a party's position on an issue from their reaction to lines in the speech.

Hundreds of Chicagoland residents flocked to a townhall meeting on education reform last week, as school choice advocates continued a nationwide push to highlight the issue during National School Choice Week.

Numbers can tell a story. Looking back on Barack Obama's second State of the Union message, and looking forward to the congressional session and the 2012 elections, they tell a story that should leave Democrats uneasy.

William Irvine is a professor of philosophy at Wright State University. He is one of the most courageous and honest professors in the country. Recently, he wrote a column concerning Wright State’s decision to invite the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to speak on his campus.

Jerry Brown pitched Californians on the concept that he was the right person to heal California’s woes because of his experience. He admitted that at 72 years of age, this was the last stop of his political career and so he could fearlessly confront the state’s daunting challenges.

As Egypt lurches toward the end of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, one way or another - by “an orderly transition to democratic rule” (as Hillary Rodham Clinton delicately puts it), through violent overthrow or simply through the demise of the ailing 82-year-old president - much is unclear.

MILFORD, Pa. – Less than a quarter-mile from the Columns, the stunning home of the Pike County Historical Society’s museum in the Delaware River Highlands, lies the grave of Charles Van Wyck, a former Republican New York congressman, U.S. senator from Nebraska, and Civil War hero.

You've had the experience of walking along and negotiating around someone who is walking slowly, weaving or bumping into other pedestrians for an obvious reason: He or she is talking on a cell phone, listening to an iPod or texting on a Blackberry.